Deirdre Mulrooney's Diary

It was a New York kind of evening in and around the hazy, smoke-filled Project Cube.

At about 6.45pm yesterday, (and the day before), an after-work crowd piled in – hassled, wound-up and stressed – to be enveloped in a cloud-space by Sarah Skaggs’ ethereal and meditative Dance for Airports (yes, inspired by 9/11), to Brian Eno’s hypnotic Music For Airports.  They left about 20 minutes later (including applause), a little more chilled.  Skaggs’ mission was accomplished. 

Earlier yesterday, after recording our RTÉ Dance on the Box video diary interview, New York-based dancer/choreographer Sarah Skaggs pointed out how Laurie Uprichard, with whom she goes back a long time, is being honoured at the prestigious Danspace Project Annual Gala on May 20th,  which modesty prevents her from boasting about.  Or even mentioning.  “She’s a dance guru,” said Skaggs.

Outside in the foyer, there was Mariam Ribon, Artistic Director of Dublin Youth Dance Company, who hadn’t seen Laurie in a long time. 

Was the last time in 1999 when Mariam danced in Sean Curran’s choreography ‘That Place Those People’ for Irish Modern Dance Theatre at Danspace Project in New York’s East Village, of which Uprichard was Executive Director for fifteen years?  “She treated us so well,” whispered Mariam, as we waited to be let in to Project Cube for Sarah Skagg’s “palate-cleansing” solo.

As well as expecting her second baby next month, Mariam is planning the Irish Youth Dance Festival at Dun Laoghaire’s Pavilion Theatre.  I’m sure Sarah Skaggs’ meditative above-the-clouds solo, informed by tai chi, and her time in Bali (among other slowed-down elements), gave Mariam a bubble of at least sixteen minutes to unwind in.  

Ribon was there with Marina Rafter, formerly General Manager of the Dance Festival and now Artistic Director of the Éigse Carlow Festival, which is gearing up for its launch next Tuesday.  Rafter, whose baby is due in July, is seeing as much of the first annual Dublin Dance Festival as commuting from Carlow, and running the festival there, allows her to do. 

Marina used to work for John Scott of Irish Modern Dance Theatre, who was in Project to see Dances for Airports, followed by Rankefod, with plenty of news.  Today (1 May) John can be seen jumping in his gym shorts on Page 27 of The Guardian G2 section.  Yes, that’s right, in his gym shorts.  We can’t bring you the photo, unfortunately, only the interview with Chris Nash – but here’s another great photo by Chris of John, this time with more clothes on. Renowned photographer Chris Nash selected it as his ‘Best Shot’, capturing how “in person he’s very self-conscious, but on stage he has this wild abandon.”

Not a bad start to the month, which promises to be an exciting airport month for Scott, who will jet off to display some of that wild abandon among a host of dancing legends in one of New York’s most edgy performance spaces, La Mama, not once, but twice. 

On May 22nd he’ll be performing extracts from his Bowing Dance alongside legendary  Judson Church artist Meredith Monk (catch an interview with Meredith & Bjork) and others in a benefit gig for La Mama Moves Dance Festival, in honour of Dance Activist and Philanthropist Micki Wesson. 

More recently, John got a call from another legendary New York choreographer, Sarah Rudner, to perform again in La Mama on 25 May in Dancing on View, a new version of This Dancing Life which she choreographed for his company last year. 

Tonight (Thursday), John’ll be at the first night of Risa Jaroslow’s Resist/Surrender at O’Reilly Theatre, to see how the chorus of Dublin non-dancer men, which he helped Jaroslow to cast, fares in her exploration of masculinity. 

But, getting back to Sarah Skaggs, the delightful soloist also succeeded in luring out Davide Terlingo (Head of Dance at the Arts Council) after a hard day at the office (very happy with the RTÉ Dance on the Box films, which were co-funded by the Council), as well as Loughlin Deegan, Director of Dublin Theatre Festival.